Fight or Flight? The Fine Art of Adrenaline.

Setting:  3:35ish AM January 7th

I'm sitting straight up in bed due to a loud crash and now the falling of shattered glass.  Fred(names have been changed to protect the innocent) grabs me screaming.  Instantly I knew what was happening.  I push F. off of me and leap the 20 feet from my bed room to the dinning room.  I feel glass everywhere, I'm still not seeing clearly in the dark.  I turn and run back through the living room, yelling at F. to call the cops.  I'm out the front door in a flash!  I'm now turning from my driveway to the street yelling HEY! HEEEYYYYYYYY! Only to see and hear the truck door close and speed off.  I run another 3 houses down chasing after the truck, yelling, trying to see anything.  All I get was that it's an older dark colored truck with a loud engine.  No light above the license plate. Nothing shining about it.  Just dark and loud.  F. is yelling at me to come back.  I stop and turn back toward the house.  I again instruct F. to call the cops.  He's still in deep sleep confusion asking me what's wrong, what happened.  That's when I tell him our lapstops are gone both stolen off the dining room table.  He's swearing getting his phone and I'm totally adrenaline crazed.  I walk back toward the house, F. is on the phone with 911.  On the walkway, by the front door,  I see the hunting knife and sheath left behind, apparently used to cut the screen and dropped on the walkway in the chaos.  Shaking with anger, I make my way into the dining/kitchen, F. has turned on the lights.  It's totally covered with glass.  I don't know how I didn't cut my feet or hands.  I remember patting my hands on the table to confirm the laptops where gone.

Crime scene

The police arrive in no time at all. Took all the info, tell us it was probably a crime of opportunity. Some dude walking around with a flash light checking in windows to see what he could smash and grab.  The funny, not so funny thing, about this is we've been really careful not to leave anything on the table because we knew it was easy pickings.  But we were both tired and just didn't bother moving them. I had even forgot one day last week, and came home from where I was to move them.  It is possible that the person had been casing the place for some time, we don't close our blinds and sit at the table most of the time since we'd only been heating the kitchen to conserve money.  Using a wool blanket as a curtain.  Which I'm assuming is why the robber probably didn't realize just how small the house was when he flashed his light in the window. I can lay in bed and see the window in question if the bedroom door is open.

the rock from my front garden thrown through window

The police did take the knife for prints and sent a forensics guy out to dust and take some of the window glass, as they saw some prints that were in between the two sets of frames so were most likely from the robber.  But we haven't heard anything from them yet.

The good news is I have home owners insurance and the insurance adjuster will be out Tuesday morning to access the damage.  Loss of two computers. Mine was fairly cheap around $500 but F.'s was $1850, and he had upgraded it a couple of times.  My table was chipped, chair cut and scratched up and my marmolium floor dented by the rock.  Oh, and of course the window and screen.

The bad news is my deductible is $1000, and my policy will go up 50% (another $275 the first year) at renewal for the first year and slowly go back down over the next 5.  That's $1000 more then I/we really have right now.  As you know if you've been reading this blog, I'm unemployed and my house payment is already kicking my fat arse.

I've thought about a fundraiser of sorts, a meatball and beer party with a donation jar or promoting my paypal link and changing if from tea and art supply fund to deducible fund.  But I feel really strange asking for financial help.  I feel like I should just keep quiet and put it all on my credit card and go about my business.  But I promised my self I wasn't going to go into crazy credit card debt during my unemployment.  So what would be optimal is if 10 people signed up for my 6 month subscription of my Print of the Month at my etsy store.  Then I could pay the deducible and not feel bad about asking for money, since they'd be getting some awesome, reasonably priced art in exchange. Maybe I should do all three! :) 

glass every where!!!

I'm still finding pieces of glass today, even tho we cleaned like crazy. I'm hoping the kitties will remain glass free.  They are still pretty jumpy too.  I had the worse headache I've ever had yesterday and couldn't open my eyes out of pain for about 6 hours.  I hear that's the after effect of a sever adrenaline rush.  Haven't been able to sleep very well either.  Wake up listening for someone creeping around.  I'm really emotional and feel like if someone even looks at me funny I might want to fight them.  I'm sad that my home no longer feels safe and that I have to close my blinds.  I hope these feelings go away quickly, it's really no fun! 

Screen, power cords and more glass!

So what have I learned that I can share with you?  Don't leave valuables in plain view. Back up your computers onto a separate hard drive or online or somewhere!  Encrypt and for sure password protect your documents!!  I lost many photos of my day job work, that will be near impossible to get again, making my day job portfolio really sad.  Thankfully, I have most of my travel photos backed up!  I did have bank statements, tax documents, and other sensitive information and only a simple log in password.  So I've had to think of all my accounts and log ins and change every password I can think of.  I will also be contacting the credit bureaus to alert for potential fraud under my name and social security number.

I've rambled on long enough.  I did arrange a temporary computer until I figure out how much the insurance company will actually give us to replace the computers.  I'm thankful to be able to communicate fully again with my online friends and continue to run and promote my etsy store. I'm looking forward to making some art this week!

Oh, and the reason F. was screaming and grabbing me?  He thought the house was under gun fire and I had been shot. So things could have been worse!  

Peace and safety to you! 
Serena